I regret that I do not have the vocabulary to talk about these speakers in a sophisticated sense so I won't be using words like warm, laid-back, bright, etc. Although I'm sure the Dynamics would hold their own in the 2-channel world, I decided on this design strictly for HT use. I wanted something very simple: big theater sound.

I got the 4T/4CC combo brought into my living room and all set up late Friday night. It took almost as long to re-run all of my cabling as it did to wire up the Dynamics. LOL. For now I'm running these with a Denon 3808ci receiver (using Audyssey calibration - which, btw, yielded the most minimal adjustments I've seen with any setup I've tried in this room) but intend to add separate amplification sometime in the not-too-distant future. For some break-in I played around with a variety of source material (TV, movies, music, video games) literally all weekend since my wife agreed to clear out and take the kids to her parents. What a nice, wifey.

Remember I said this thing was nearly a year in the making, so there's been quite a bit of build-up over the months waiting to finish this project. Lots of time for expectations to be raised too high, opening the door for disappointment. Not to mention that I'm notoriously difficult to please, let alone impress. So how do I think they sound?

Let's see if I can cover the range of emotions...

Is that thorough enough? Wait, where's the almost-peed-my-pants emoticon?

Let me try this: When you go to a movie theater...a huge room with umpteen-zillion speakers designed to put you in the movie and rattle your parts when called for...there's a particular sound. An enormous, full bodied sound that makes you feel like you're hearing everything the sound engineers intended you to hear from top to bottom. It's immersive. You don't feel like you're watching a movie, you feel like you're in the movie. Right? You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down here? Well I only have the front three so far for this system and let me tell you, I now have "the sound" of a movie theater. The sound field is so incredibly large, and I mean large. But the cohesiveness is equally impressive. I can't tell where one speaker stops and the other begins as things pan across the screen; one benefit of a monster center channel, I presume. It easily dwarfs my 50" HDTV, in a good way.

I ran the gamut of my "backed up" movie collection. War of the Worlds, Terminator Salvation, Transformers, 9, 300, 2012, even the intro to Top Gun. The sound these things can pump out is absolutely unreal. I must admit I'm a bass head and that aspect certainly didn't disappoint. Trust me, 12 woofers does in fact provide enough bass in case you weren't sure. But the mid-range and high end detail was fantastic, never overcome by the chest-thumping bass. Little electronic gadget sounds or metal-on-metal clangs were so clearly defined and audible. The truck explosion at the beginning of Iron Man put a real big smile on my face. I literally felt like I was one of the unfortunate soldiers getting hammered by round after round in the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. I'm fairly certain the sound of Morpheus' knee narrowly missing Neo's head in the Matrix dojo scene made my heart skip a beat.

After watching stuff all day Saturday I finally decided to plug in my 15" Velodyne sub to see what additional extension it would offer. Amazingly, up until this point I saw virtually no "need" for a sub, even during movies. After tweaking a bit the sub integrated pretty well and did end up providing some extra extension. It didn't add much, if anything, to general TV or music but it did add some rumble to movie soundtracks. I can't say that I heard anything more with the sub but I certainly felt more, which is to be expected from a fairly large sub. I think you'd need a large sub (sonosub, IB or horn-loaded design) to pick up where the Dynamics leave off. A typical 10" or 12" sub probably isn't going to gain you a whole lot. I would say that's a testament to the frequency range capability and cone area of the 4Ts, which Audyssey is crossing at a low 40hz. The sub is really only putting out the sub-40hz sound you can feel. The stuff you can hear is predominantly coming from the 4Ts. Pretty impressive.

When watching standard TV programming I hear things I know I couldn't hear before. But nothing is over the top. Everything is very well balanced top to bottom, left to right. I've never had such a cohesive front stage before. Football sounded great. Video games are amazing. I've read where some speakers are incredibly revealing of poorly recorded material. I can't say I get that sense so far from the Dynamics. Sure some things sound better than others but I haven't come across a track yet that is just unlistenable.

As with many of us, the front three is only the beginning. Surrounds are to come starting with the rears then side-surrounds. Then I'll likely jump to a powerful dedicated amp for at least the front three. Who knows from there. But I can't imagine wanting to trade these out any time soon.

Jed, you've got lightning in a bottle here, my friend. Unbelievable. And I'm currently running these off a receiver no less. Wow. Many thanks! If you're looking for a dedicated HT system that will no doubt perform admirably in 2-channel mode as well I can't recommend Jed's Dynamic 4T/4CC MKii's enough.

** I took some pics late last night after taking the kids trick-or-treating but they didn't turn out very well. I'll take some fresh ones with a bit more ambient light in the room to help my camera. Will post those soon!